CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP) Receives Average Recommendation of “Hold” from Brokerages

Shares of CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP) have been assigned a consensus rating of “Hold” from the eleven analysts that are currently covering the stock, Marketbeat Ratings reports. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell recommendation, nine have given a hold recommendation and one has issued a buy recommendation on the company. The average twelve-month price objective among brokerages that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $29.91.

A number of research firms have recently issued reports on CNP. JPMorgan Chase & Co. downgraded shares of CenterPoint Energy from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and reduced their price target for the company from $32.00 to $29.00 in a research report on Friday, August 2nd. StockNews.com downgraded CenterPoint Energy from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research report on Thursday. KeyCorp cut CenterPoint Energy from an “overweight” rating to a “sector weight” rating in a research report on Friday, August 2nd. Scotiabank decreased their price objective on shares of CenterPoint Energy from $29.00 to $28.00 and set a “sector perform” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, August 20th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company raised their target price on shares of CenterPoint Energy from $28.00 to $32.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Wednesday.

CenterPoint Energy Stock Performance

Shares of CNP stock opened at $30.11 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 1.20, a quick ratio of 0.99 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.79. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $28.13 and a 200-day simple moving average of $28.89. The company has a market cap of $19.26 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.20, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.56 and a beta of 0.92. CenterPoint Energy has a 12-month low of $25.41 and a 12-month high of $31.57.

CenterPoint Energy (NYSE:CNP) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, July 30th. The utilities provider reported $0.36 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.32 by $0.04. CenterPoint Energy had a return on equity of 10.81% and a net margin of 12.28%. The firm had revenue of $1.91 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.88 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $0.28 earnings per share. On average, equities analysts forecast that CenterPoint Energy will post 1.62 EPS for the current year.

CenterPoint Energy Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, December 12th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, November 21st will be paid a $0.21 dividend. This is a boost from CenterPoint Energy’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.20. This represents a $0.84 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.79%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, November 21st. CenterPoint Energy’s payout ratio is presently 59.15%.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Wellington Management Group LLP boosted its position in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 22.2% in the fourth quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 3,990,250 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $114,001,000 after acquiring an additional 723,663 shares during the last quarter. Quadrature Capital Ltd acquired a new position in shares of CenterPoint Energy in the 4th quarter valued at $230,000. CWM LLC grew its stake in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 4.5% during the 1st quarter. CWM LLC now owns 10,872 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $310,000 after buying an additional 464 shares during the period. GAMMA Investing LLC increased its holdings in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 15.9% during the 1st quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 7,756 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $221,000 after buying an additional 1,062 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Czech National Bank increased its holdings in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 0.5% during the 1st quarter. Czech National Bank now owns 111,064 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $3,164,000 after buying an additional 510 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 91.77% of the company’s stock.

CenterPoint Energy Company Profile

CenterPoint Energy, Inc operates as a public utility holding company in the United States. The company operates through two segments, Electric and Natural Gas. The Electric segment includes electric transmission and distribution services to electric customers and electric generation assets, as well as optimizes assets in the wholesale power market.